I’m curled on my side, in the center of the stones. Deep in my chest, the Corruption churns—it slithers and tangles, as though in response to my anger and despair. Threads of darkness vein my arms, my chest, and tighten against my throat.
Rowan lived for so long with this poison inside him. It hurt him and hurt him, before it almost claimed him entirely. And that was only a part of the Corruption. I have all of it within me now. All the darkness that poisoned the shore and the lake and the world Above. All the darkness that devoured the souls and the heartwoods and the world Below.
The Lord Under kneels down beside me. “Don’t fight it.” The same words he said after I’d walked into the lake. He leans over me, until all I can see is his beautiful, cruel face, and takes my hand.
My mouth fills with more of the ink-dark water. I shake myself free of his touch, then gasp and choke and spit until I can finally take another labored breath. I put my hands against my face as I start to cry. I catch a muffled sob inside my palms, then swallow down my tears.
“You knew.” I hate how betrayed I sound, that I can’t hide how much he’s upset me. “You knew all along that I’d end up this way.”
His eyes narrow coldly. “Yes, I knew. I knew when you came to me that you would be able to do this. I needed your magic, but the spell wasn’t all of it. More than anything, I needed your willingness to invite in the darkness, to offer yourself up, to let it in.”
“You lied to me. You tricked me.”
“Have you forgotten what you asked?” His words change until they match the cadence of my own voice. “I just want to keep everyone safe. I have to make it stop. I need your help. This—your sacrifice—was the only way.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant.”
“I know what I promised.” Angered, his features shift for a moment. Too many eyes, too many teeth, diagonal slashes opening at his neck. Then his face resettles. “They’re safe. The Corruption is mended. I’ve never lied to you, Violeta.”
I push back my sleeve. There’s a deep, blood-slick cut through the center of the sigil on my wrist. I put my fingers against the mark and press down, feeling for the thread of magic that ties me to Rowan. A blur of emotions—mine and not mine—flutters through my mind. Faint and weak and far off, but still there.
“I just wanted to go home.”
“And I took you home. I let you see everyone you loved, one last time.” His implacable expression flickers, and for just a breath, he looks almost sorry. He tries to stroke my hair, but I push him away.
“Don’t touch me.”
The Lord Under takes a step back, then another, moving to the other side of the circled stones. “Don’t fight it,” he says again. “The darkness has to claim you. It will overtake you. You’ll die and turn to ash, and your soul will sleep in a heartwood tree. Only then will the Corruption be gone.”
As he speaks, I feel the poison snaring through me, tighter and tighter. It’s harder to breathe, harder to speak, harder to see. I close my eyes and try to draw on my magic. It’s past the full moon now, and my power is weak and small. Almost impossible to grasp. Every piece of me feels bruised by the effort, but finally, I catch hold.
Please. The Corruption writhes beneath my skin. My wrists, my throat, my heart, my lungs. Lie still, stay quiet.
At first, it fights. Pain sears through my bones, inside my chest. A flood of water fills my mouth. Please. I think of warmth and light. Of my skin, freckled and sunburned and unmarked by poison. I think of a deep, slow breath that doesn’t taste of lake water. Don’t hurt me. Let me go.
And then it all softens. The poison curls up, nestles between my ribs. The tightness in my throat and chest slackens. I take a desperate breath, run my hands over my skin to soothe the ache. But even though the Corruption has quieted, I can still feel its hunger. I know that soon it will reawaken, too strong for me to fight.
A drift of wind stirs through the needle-leafed branches. And the darkness whispers to me. I won’t hurt you. Let me claim you.
I shake my head. No. I look at the Lord Under, who watches me in careful silence.
“Come here,” I demand. My voice sounds like the lake. Deep, dark water that wants to drown the world.
He comes toward me, slowly, tensely, almost as if he’s afraid of me. Maybe he never lied, but he never told the whole truth, either. And now I want to know. I’m not going quiet into the dark until I’m certain there’s no other choice.
I meet his pale eyes with my own glare. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you will answer honestly.”
He waits, expectantly. I consider each word, weigh it carefully before I go on. “Can your magic mend the Corruption, now that it’s only inside me?”
He doesn’t move. At first I think he will refuse to answer, but then his mouth curves very slightly into the barest hint of a smile. “Yes, it could.”
“You could stop this?”
His smile widens until I can see the sharp points of his teeth. “That would depend on what you were willing to offer me.”
I know I only have one chance at this. I think of how he swallowed my blood, my fear, my memories. Everything I gave up to him at the altar. He could so easily let me be devoured. Whether he bargains with me now, or watches me die at his feet, either way he’ll win. I need to make him realize that there is value in my safety. To make him want me, whole and alive.
In the Vair Woods, I was small and frightened and powerless, and I thought I had nothing to offer him. But now I have so much. I have family and love and a home. I have magic and strength.
I feel the shape of the word in my mouth. Let it sit on my tongue, until I can taste it. Then I tell him my offer. “Power.”
He looks at me curiously. “Go on.”
“You told me once there is power in fear. Well, I won’t fear you. But if you can make me safe from the Corruption—take the poison from me—I will give you power.” I press my lips together, holding myself steady, though inside I am alight with desperation. “I will love you. I will worship you. I will never forget you, even after I go home.”
He steps closer, a pale glow against the quiet shadows of the darkened forest. His frosted-glass eyes, the fringe of his lashes, his hair like a veil of mist. Slowly, he lifts his hand and strokes my face. His claws are gentle as he traces the edge of my jaw. When he touches me, I remember how it felt when we cast the spell together. How raw and bared and close it all was. The cold burn of his shadows as they sang through me.
I lean my cheek against his palm for a moment. Then I put my hand over his and still his touch. “Will you accept?”
“I am considering it.” He tips his chin toward the stones. “Sit.”
My stomach twists into an anxious knot. He hasn’t refused. Not yet. I ease myself back, until I’m sitting on one of the charred granite stones. He lowers himself to kneel at my feet. He looks down at my boots—sodden with inky water, clotted all over with mud from the churned ground.
“Do you think so highly of your company, my Violet in the woods?” He takes one of my boots in his hands and starts to untie the laces. “Perhaps I’d rather your soul. It would be much less trouble.”
“But how much power is there in one soul?” When he doesn’t reply, I go on. “Tell me, truly. Would I be worth as much to you if I was just another voice, whispering inside one of your trees?”
All I can hear is my heartbeat as I wait for him to answer. Finally, he laughs darkly and shakes his head. “No. Though I suspect you’d argue much less.”
Relief sinks through me, and I force myself to smile at him. I fold back my skirts, so he can reach my feet more easily. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure I’d find a way. As for my company? I’m the only person alive who can see you and summon you. I can touch you. I can walk in the land of the dead. I can hear the voices of your souls. So yes. I do think of myself that highly.”
He looks up at me, and it’s as though he’s seen me anew. Like I’m a seed he planted here in this once-ruined earth, and now I’ve grown into an unexpected flower. He smiles at me, pleased.
He takes off my boots and sets them aside with the toes lined up. He takes off my ribbon-topped socks and tucks them into my boots. Then he looks down at my knees, and pauses when he sees my scars. He slowly lifts his hand, his claws hovering over the marks.
I start to think of Rowan, and even filled with poison—my heart aches. I remember how I felt when the two of us were in my garden on the night I told him about my magic. When he first touched my scars, his hands roughened and warm and gentle, that was the first time it woke up in me—my want for him, my unexpected longing.
“No.” I grab the Lord Under’s wrist. “Don’t touch me.”
Neither of us moves for a long time. I can hear his breath, feel the cold of him against my bare skin. I slowly release his wrist and unfold my mud-streaked skirts, smoothing them back down over my legs.
He gets to his feet and holds out his hand to me. His claws are blackened with dirt from my boots. “Come with me, then.”
I look up, startled, then slowly stand and walk unsteadily toward him, hardly daring to believe I’ve convinced him. The ground is damp and very cold beneath my bare feet. I’m still shivering, and I can’t stop. We stand, facing each other, the hem of his cloak brushing against my toes. He takes my hand, and his thumb strokes a crescent over my palm.
He leans down, until his mouth hovers just above mine. I feel his breath on my lips as he whispers to me. “It will take time, and it won’t be pleasant. You may come to wish you’d asked for the poison, Violeta.”
Then he lifts me into his arms. I let him, though there’s a part of me that feels I shouldn’t. But I’m so hurt and sad and tired that I don’t care.
He’s too close, too real. Pale and cold and cruel. When I lean against his chest, there’s no heartbeat. There’s a wrongness to this. It’s the same way I felt when I first listened to the voices of the souls. A sense that I have witnessed something incomprehensible. I shouldn’t be able to see him or touch him or be here. And yet, now we’re bound more inextricably than ever before.
He carries me through the forest, through the crimson heartwoods of the world Below. The path is bordered with luminous mushrooms that shimmer, ghostly, in the gloom. The branches overhead are strung with fluttering mothlights. They flicker, accompanied by a muted plink plink, the sound of wings against glass.
I reach to my wrist and touch the sigil, feel it pulse gently against my palm. I picture myself back at Lakesedge, in the kitchen, warm beside the stove. Florence with flour on her hands as she bakes a layer cake. Clover with her notebooks and bitter tea. And Arien. My brother, whose magic was strong enough to hold back the Corruption, to keep everyone safe while I went Below.
If I go back—when I go back—I’ll tell him, We did this together.
There’s a pull at the center of my chest, and I think of Rowan, the bright thread of magic knotted between our hearts. I imagine him touching the sigil on his arm, and the ache at my wrist responds with an answering heat. I’ll come back to you. I promise.
Then I let my hand drop away. I curl up in the Lord Under’s arms and put my head against his shoulder. Shadows and mist close in around us, turning the air to the color of storm-hued dusk. We go farther and farther, past groves filled with saplings, past dim hollows carpeted with ferns. Until, eventually, we reach a new part of the forest.
Everything looks different here. As we pass the trees, their bloodred bark starts to change. It’s as though there are two forests, interlaid with each other. One is just trees and moss and mist, and the quiet murmur of souls. The other is … different.
The more I look, the farther we go, the more this second, hidden forest comes into clearer focus. It’s like seeing ghosts of strange, half-faded human things that have found their way down from the world Above. On one tree there’s an icon. Ancient, the paint weathered away to a blurred outline, the frame covered with lichen. A little farther along, there’s a tumble of stones beyond the trees. Four walls, a space that might have been a window, once, and the tall shape of a chimney.
I don’t know why, but I feel like the forest is changing for me. Making itself into a world that is more … familiar.
Finally, we reach a grove, where there’s another path, lined by altar candles that flare alight as we pass, a haze of smoke and honey. The ground slopes upward. As we climb, a strange darkness starts to gather at the edges of the forest. There are shapes—tall and slender and almost human. I turn to get a closer look, but they fade, they slip, and no matter how hard I try to see them, they’re always just outside my vision.
“You said there were no other people in the world Below.”
The Lord Under looks at me curiously. “There aren’t.”
I blink and look again. The darkened shapes have vanished. There are only the trees and the spaces between them. Whatever I saw must have been a trick of the light, a dance of shadows across the mist-laced woods.
The ground levels out, and we enter a clear space lined with mothlights. Before us is an enormous tree. But it’s not like the other heartwoods, with red bark and sharp, needle-fine leaves. This one is branchless and smooth and white, like it’s been carved from bone. And as we draw closer, the bare, pale trunk begins to shift and change. The wood creaks and groans before peeling back to reveal the tender heart beneath.
Sap oozes down over the raw edges of the newly made arch. It smells fresh and sharp, like the bundled pine torches we burned at the Summersend fire. Inside, beyond the opening, there’s a hollowed space that’s all darkness. The Lord Under carries me toward the archway. He carries me inside.
I shiver and shiver and shiver. He puts his hand over my heart, and I flinch. “You’re not frightened, are you, my Violet?” He smiles, amused. “After you promised not to fear me.”
I swallow, with effort. “I’ll never fear you. Never.”
“I’ll gladly accept your fear, should you change your mind. I told you before, you wear it well.”
Inside the tree, the air is full of whispers, scented with petrichor and mist. I hear the voice of the Corruption; I hear the voices of other souls. The Lord Under still has his hand on my chest. And then, beneath his touch, at the center of my heart, I feel the darkness stir.
My magic stretches and unfolds as the darkness is pulled toward him. Sparks dance across my fingers. My power, his power, my Corruption, all begin to twine together. It hurts. I draw in a tangled breath.
I touch the sigil inscribed on my bloodstained arm. I am here. I have crossed between worlds. I have fought and bled and won. I have been poisoned. I have been taken into the dark. But I can still feel the throb and pull of the spell that ties me to the world Above. The magic is on my skin, inside my skin. Written on my bones, my heart, my soul. I promised to come back, and I will.
I will.
The Lord Under holds me close. We go farther inside the hollow heart of the bone white tree. We go deeper, into darkness stretching endlessly before us. I lift my head. “Where are you taking me?”
He’s a silhouette, lit only by the silver mist that trails in from the forest. All I can see is the jagged-edged shape of the driftwood that wreathes his pale hair. The faintest outline of his face.
“I’m going to mend you.” He looks down at me and smiles. “Then you’ll go home.”
The juniper light wavers. Everything fades.